SASS & THE CITY: Maternity fashion makes strides

The pregnant women of today have no idea how good they have it when it comes to fashion.

At the mall the other day, I overheard a twenty-something expectant mom complaining that the current maternity fashions leave something to be desired.

"Excuse me for eavesdropping, but puh-leease," I said to her. "You have no idea how bad the styles were 24 years ago when I was pregnant."

"It couldn't have been worse than it is now," she replied with an eye roll.

"I have one word for you," I uttered. Ominously. "Rickrack."

She stared at me, bewildered.

"Look it up."

In recent years, I have noticed a trend in maternity fashion that is not only more attractive than what we preggies of yesteryear had to endure, but also embraces the baby bump.

Back when I was pregnant, the hideous, baggy maternity designs worked harder to disguise pregnancies than Viking Press did to hide Salman Rushdie.

As if. Trying to hide a baby bump at nine months is like trying to get people not to notice Donald Trump's hairdo. Not gonna happen no matter how hard you try.

The frumpy, shapeless maternity pinafores from back in the day were so massive and billowy, you could have probably fit Gov. Chris Christie in there. But you still couldn't camouflage the pregnancy. And, frankly, why in the world would you want to?

Then there were the fabrics. Whose idea was it to put cheap, cheesy, unbreathable polyester fabric on hot, crabby, hormonal women who were gaining weight at the speed of sound and needed robotic arm extensions just to tie a freaking shoe?

And if the government is looking for a more humane way to interrogate terrorists, they may want to consider bringing back dotted Swiss and making them wear it.

And I can't even begin to deal with the memory of smocking.

Another pregnancy couture abomination was the maternity jeans. Those stretch-waisted atrocities looked like the world's worst possible pair of mom jeans with an anterior elastic trapdoor on them. Sort of like denim footsie pajamas, worn backward with the footies cut off.

Wearing those ugly maternity fashions was totally worth it, considering the reward. But before preggies of today complain, walk a mile in my muumuu.

Follow Monica on Twitter at twitter.com/sassnthecity or e-mail her at lewis.427@hotmail.com.